Is Kevin Durant Destined to Fail At a Young Age Like Wilt, Oscar and MJ?

As far as individual stats go, Kevin Durant doesn’t worry much about precedent. The 23-year-old is far too busy setting his own: youngest player to win an NBA scoring title (and likely only one of any age to wear pink and blue argyle socks), youngest to win three straight scoring titles, youngest to score 10,971 points—the last 16 of which still smolder in the collective imagination of basketball fans everywhere. “That was great, just to see that and be a witness,” Thunder guard Thabo Sefolosha said of his teammate’s torrid fourth quarter.

As Durant’s name gains traction in the League’s record book, so does the nationwide appeal of the surging team he leads. No team with a core of players so young—Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Serge Ibaka are 23 years old or younger—has ever played this well at this level. In the last two seasons, these Thunder have reached the Conference Finals twice. They have won 121 of 178 games, the last of which has many believing the team of the future’s time is now.

Not so fast.

Yes, the Thunder’s 109-103 win over San Antonio on Saturday night was impressive. Yes, the Spurs, once so hot, have now lost two in a row for the first time since Newt Gingrich was relevant.

But the Spurs are still at the front of the bus, with the game’s best coach at the wheel. Moreover, that bus has returned to San Antonio for Monday night’s Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals. There, the young Thunder cannot feed off the emotions that fueled it to consecutive wins in the cozy confines of Chesapeake Energy Arena. To win, they will have to fortify their focus, block out distraction and get similarly unexpected X-factor contributions like the combined 18-for-20 shooting performance received from Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins on Saturday night.

On top of all this, Durant must again pump in a maestro performance. Even if Westbrook and Harden elevate their game, the bulk of praise or blame ultimately falls on Durant’s shoulders. And chances are, despite the Thunder’s recent success, Durant and his team will fail. History typically doesn’t smile kindly on whippersnapper teams trying to topple the title-winning old guard this deep in the Playoffs, even when the up-and-comers are led by a transcendent talent equal or greater to Durant.

In the following series, a relatively unproven challenger (the lower seed) tried to knock out more experienced teams that had recently won titles in what’s now known as the Conference Finals. Game 5’s are italicized when the series lead was at stake.

In all of the above situations that closely resemble today’s OKC-San Antonio Game 5, only once—in 2007—did the less experienced team topple the older team on the road. And that win doesn’t happen without a superhuman effort from LeBron James, who scored the Cavaliers’ final 25 points. That Cleveland team, of course, would get swept by a vastly more experienced San Antonio team—featuring the same core players who will play better at home tonight.

After Saturday night’s loss, Spurs swingman Stephen Jackson discussed how homecourt advantage helped the Thunder rediscover their mojo: “They want it. They want to be here, they wanna win. I love the passion of those young guys over there in that locker room. I love the passion, how much they want it, and I just want us to be the same way.”

“We got to have that fire and that energy from the beginning of the game like they are. They’re ready to play. It takes us a quarter, or the second quarter or even the third quarter for us to get going and playing physical. We got to be that team from the beginning of the game.”

Years from now it will be some grey-bearded Thunder player representing a top-seeded Oklahoma City squad talking the same way, trying to fire up his teammates for one more Championship.

The first of those titles will arrive soon enough. Just not this year.

Expect Durant, like Robertson, Chamberlain, Thomas, Jordan and Nowitzki before him, to succumb to his elders first.

Arkansas-based journalist Evin Demirel has written for ESPN.com, Slate and SLAM magazine. Follow him on Twitter @evindemirel.